Acidosis and Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis, alongside hot flashes, is every menopausal, skinny, white woman's nightmare. According to the National Osteoporosis foundation, osteoporosis is responsible for 2 million bone breaks a year. For most of us in the biz of healthcare we know that breaking a hip, in most cases, is a one way ticket into a nursing home (if you are lucky enough to actually leave the hospital).  According to the CDC, in 2010 there were 258,000 hospital admissions for hip fractures among people aged 65 and older and one out of five of these patients died within a year of their injury. If you weren't scared of breaking a hip before, I hope you are now; this, my friends, is a serious issue. We usually think of osteoporosis as an old person's disease but what we don't realize is that the process of building strong bones and preventing osteoporosis is a continuous cycle that starts when we are children. 
I recently had my annual physical and was pleasantly surprised that my physician addressed osteoporosis prevention with me. Now, I appreciate the time and effort she put in explaining to me the importance of calcium and exercise in osteoporosis prevention but I felt like the information she provided was seriously lacking in very important areas. Preventing osteoporosis is not as simple as drinking milk and exercising; if it was, the United states alongside the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden, would not have the highest rates of Osteoporosis in the world. The dairy industry has spent millions of dollars convincing the general population that "milk does the body good." The dairy industry has so much influence that the new food pyramid/plate still has a glass of milk on it. I can tell you that after receiving my most recent certification in holistic nutrition and reading numerous books on bone health, that milk actually has the exact opposite effect on the body that it claims to have. According to Vivian Goldschmidt, founder of the Save our Bones Program (http://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth), milk creates an acidotic state in the body therefore, depleting calcium from the bones.
As an ICU nurse I have come to appreciate the body's need to maintain an acid base balance. Acid base disturbances can cause a multitude of symptoms including headache, dizziness, irritability, nausea, confusion, gait disturbances and sometimes death. The body will do whatever it takes to keep the pH balance in your blood between 7.35 and 7.45. In only a few circumstances do people ever become alkalotic (pH above 7.45) so for the purpose of this blog I am going to focus on the acidotic state. 
In an acidotic state the body will increase respirations to remove CO2 from the body, the kidneys will secrete bicarbonate to buffer the blood as well as excrete urine to remove acids, and the bones will release calcium and other buffering minerals into the bloodstream;  so, it would make sense that being in a chronically acidotic state would cause osteoporosis since the bones would have to be continuously releasing calcium into the bloodstream to buffer the blood. Now that we have that down lets talk about what foods/substances can push the body into an acidotic state. This website http://www.vegan-raw-diet.com/alkalinefoods.html has a great list of acidic/alkaline foods. They recommend eating 60% alkaline foods and 40% acid forming foods to keep you body in balance. The general idea is to increase the amount of fruits, vegetables and whole grains and decrease the amount of meat and dairy in your diet. I'm not saying turn yourself into a vegan but if you can at least entertain the idea of "Meatless Mondays," you might actually save yourself from a broken bone and maybe even a heart attack.